#I love ai art because it's just so interesting seeing what we can make from only algorithms and preexisting datasets

[lastoneout]

I was too high last night to formulate this into proper words but something plagiarists(and by extension AI techbros) don't get about people who make things out of a love for that thing is that they are, consciously or not, doing it because they enjoy the process itself. Yes, it is easier to have a machine make a mug or painting or essay for you, or to steal someone else's, but again, people who actually like making stuff don't want someone else to do it for us because you have fully removed the thing we enjoy: the process of making a thing.

Like sure it would be nice to have a finished Gundam model or a trainset, but people who build gunpla kits and trainsets don't WANT someone else to do it for them, they want to do it. The sculptor or painter doesn't want a machine to just give them finished works of art, they want to MAKE that art themselves. The home gardner can just buy fresh food at the store, the tailor or knitter can buy a finished shirt or sweater whenever they want, but they don't because the act of gardening and sewing and knitting itself is what they enjoy.

Plagarists and AI techbros don't get that because they do not enjoy these processes. They enjoy making money and having social clout, and so they are perfectly happy stealing and automating things so that they don't have to do an ounce of real work while still getting all of the benefits of having created something. It really is all about finding the fastest and easiest way to get someone to hand you money or elect you god-king of the internet.

And the reason these two groups have such a hard time understanding each other is because of that fundamental disconnect. People who create things can never understand someone just wanting to press a button or copy-paste their way to having art because we want to indulge in the joy of creation itself, and those plagarists and AI dudes can't understand artists because to them it's just a means to an end so ofc it's in their best interest to make it as easy as possible. They don't get why someone would do this, or anything, if not for the social capital and/or actual capital it brings. Ofc it's better to automate it or steal it from someone else, that means you can make money faster and spend your time enjoying actual meaningful things like being wealthy and looked up to or w/e.

Plus creators(for lack of a better word) know keenly what it's like to BE stolen from or at least know people it has happened to, and so we are generally anti-plagarism by default.

Anyway yeah thats why to anyone who creates the other group seems so soulless and empty. It's because they kinda are. Because they don't value art or artists or care about creating things, and they certainly don't have any ammount of respect for the people they're hurting, they just want money and for "lesser" people to bow down as they walk by, and they are perfectly fine stealing to get there. It's the same mentality you get from people who pressure you to monetize your hobbies, they only see skills as an opportunity to make money. And it's really fucking sad.

[skania]

OnK Chapter 158 Thoughts

This is literally me every time Akane shows up 😭

It was so cute to see Ruby so happy to see Akane! It feels like the two must have grown close again off-panel after this happened:

Akane looks so cute, too 😭

Onto the more pressing matters, first thing that caught my eye was that the concert took place in Miyazaki, aka the town where Goro & Sarina lived and died. According to Akane, she had "some business" there. This business is quite obviously not something she is keen to discuss, considering her reaction.

Could the business be keeping tabs on our resident psycho, the one and only Nino?

To be perfect honest, I'd also hope that "business" involves Akane doing some digging about Goro...

...But since I've gotten used to not having nice things in this manga, I'll just settle for Akane tailing Nino and keeping an eye on her, because that feels like the in-character thing for her to do.

So we could say that the beginning of the chapter establishes that Akane may be tailing Nino.

That's one thing to keep in mind.

Moving on, Akane says that she "might not be able to make it" to the Christmas concert. The very concert Kana will Graduate in. The one where Kana is expecting a reply from Aqua.

Akane (and her now patented ^^ smile) is vague enough that we can read it in various ways. Could it be that Akane doesn't quite want to watch the concert where she's expecting Kana and Aqua to get together? Or could it be that she has something more important to do that day?

And if she does, could that involve the 'Happy Ending' she and Aqua discussed two chapters ago?

That's another thing to keep in mind.

Speaking about Aqua, since Christmas in Japan is a holiday for couples, we get this very funny, very interesting panel from Ruby, who looks anything but supportive at the thought of Akane dating someone new lol

Looks like Ruby isn't too keen on Akane moving on from her precious brother. It's up in the air whether that's just Ruby being a brocon or because Akane still has her seal of approval to date him, though.

Akane really has this fake smile down to an art lmao

Next we get an Akane monologue where we're told that despite Kana being a force to be reckoned with, she can't match up to Ruby, who outshines her.

When I read those words, they automatically reminded me of Nino, who went through the same thing with Ai. Fittingly enough, we later get this Nino panel, where Memcho's face is obscured and only Ruby and Kana can be seen.

We also happen to get this ominous panel where Akane shows she's aware that there are people out there who want to "destroy" Ruby's sparkle. This is another thing to keep in mind.

I'm curious as to what Ruby was about to say when the scene cuts to Nino, but I won't speculate about it. Tsukuyomi's monologue was also interesting, in the sense that it tells us how Aqua's, Nino's and Kamiki's love for Ai has gotten all twisted.

Next thing we know, we get a timeskip. Aka has literally timeskipped us straight to Christmas, aka Kana's graduation concert.

The rushed pacing alone would've been hilarious if it weren't for what happens next.

Let's summarize everything Aka has established in the past few chapters up to now, shall we?

Aqua and Akane know that Nino is behind all the deaths in the manga. We have no idea how they realized this, but Aka took the time to show that they magically knew it. We're thus led to believe that this is important.

Akane wants to ensure everyone's future holds a happy ending, and Aqua is aware of this. Considering that both of them outright discuss Nino, we're led to assume that they may team up to make sure she's dealt with.

To this end, Akane may be, quite literally, tailing Nino.

Meanwhile, Ruby herself is being constantly watched by Miyako and Ichigo, to the point she says she doesn't have a single second of alone time.

Moreover, Akane pretty much summarizes in this chapter why Nino would target Ruby.

So I must ask:

Taking all of this into account, in what world does this make any sense at all?

The door even had a window! A window!

And even if it isn't see-through, we've been told over and over again that idols need to have keychains and security systems to protect themselves from crazy fans. Ai herself says so.

So in what world does it make sense for Ruby to get stabbed like that?? lol

Now, the stab in and of itself is anything but surprising. The manga hasn't exactly been subtle lately about Ruby likely becoming Nino's target. Some of us thought that Gotanda's line about Kana protecting Ruby was foreshadowing and that Kana would tank the stab for Ruby. Others thought that Kamiki would be the one to step in to save his daughter, one good deed to help atone for his past wrongs.

Whatever the case, despite our personal preferences and hopes for this manga, we all knew that Ruby was in danger and that someone would be getting stabbed. Some of us even expected it to happen this week because it's the week where Sayahime would be getting slashed in the manga lmao

So how am I supposed to believe that Aqua and Akane, who somehow even figured out Nino killed Yura and thus her motif, didn't take the necessary measures to not let it happen? lol

Even the lead up to it is... bland. Forced. Nonsensical. Why isn't Ruby shown curiously peeking at the door just like Ai would've done? Why don't we see her behaving normally at all before she opens the door?

The stab page is pretty much a copy-paste from Ai's, so why not go all the way and have a repeat of these panels, too?

This all could be explained by forced, bad writing — an Aka staple, certainly. And I wouldn't be surprised if that's the case. In fact all of this must sound silly coming from me, since I've been laughing about Aka's mess for weeks now. But biased as I am, I'm kind of forced to take the bad writing more seriously when my favorite character is directly impacted by it 😂

So I'd like to think that Akane and Aqua did see this coming and that they have a contingency plan. In fact, I'd even go as far as saying that I'd like to believe that the stab itself is staged. There are certainly enough weird things about it to make room for that possibility. The first thing I wondered about when the leaks dropped was if it could be someone pretending to be Ruby to trick Nino, and the lead-up to the stab does leave room for that possibility imo

Akane (or Aqua) with a wig, or even Ruby herself but aware of the plan — I would literally take anything at this point except the very empty, very forced scenario where Ruby truly just got stabbed because everything established in the previous chapters suddenly ceased to matter lol Heck, I'd even take Akane using a prop knife to give Ruby a scare and force Miyako & Ichigo to take measures to keep Ruby safe during the concert. Would it be silly? Absolutely. But this entire situation is already silly as it is, so I'll settle for the lesser evil lol

The story can't keep making Aqua & Akane ridiculously intelligent when it suits it, and normal when it doesn't. It's inconsistent and most of all, it's unnecessary. They could just as well have figured it out after the fact, alongside the reader, which would have drastically increased the emotional impact of the Nino reveal from: predictable and rushed to predictable but impactful.

If this was done so that Aqua and Akane can question themselves and their desire to shoulder the darkness to protect others, couldn't this be done in a better way? Because as it is, if everything is just as it seems, then Aka has deliberately kept Aqua and Akane from growing just so he can force them to do so through shock value alone.

I know I always say that I don't like predicting Aka, but I thought it'd be revealed that they had enlisted everyone's help to deliberately lure Nino into targeting Ruby during the Christmas concert, and that they would catch her red-handed before she could hurt Ruby. Since I figured that Aka may want someone to get stabbed anyway so that Aqua could put his medical knowledge to use, I thought that something would go wrong during the confrontation with Nino and that she would manage to hurt someone either way.

Maybe it was my mistake to expect any sort of consistency from Aka. Time and time again he shows that all he cares about is his perfect timing, and so characters will do whatever they have to do and will be kept as stagnant as they need to be in order for their development to happen only when that perfect timing has been reached. Like the way he rushed and rushed just so the stab could happen at the same time as the Saya slashing in the anime.

I do wonder though, aside from Ruby being immortalized as the ultimate idol through surviving the same attack Ai died from (and Kana's graduation happening at the Dome, because who wouldn't want B-Komachi at the Dome after this), what would be the point of this? Will Aqua magically get there in time so he can use his medic knowledge? Will Tsukuyomi perform a miracle? Or will we get a few chapters of people crying over Ruby's hospital bed while Nino keeps being crazy in the background?

No matter how I look at it, I feel like the only scenario where the writing is (somewhat) salvaged is the one where things aren't as they seem and this is all part of a plan we aren't privy to. Making Nino think that she has killed Ruby, only for Ruby to get on-stage brighter than ever would be a pretty cool twist.

If there is no twist though, then characters were made to look circumstantially dumb and incompetent just so Aka can have some last hurrah in the form of forced drama lol

So yeah, as per usual, I'll be hoping for the better option out of the two while preparing myself for the worst outcome.

Edit: I literally forgot KAMIKI lmao if not Aqua and Akane, KAMIKI should know that Nino is definitely going to go after Ruby. Why would he just sit on his butt and let it happen??

If there's no twist at all, this will seriously be an all-out character massacre 💀

[tangibletechnomancy]

The (Personal) Is (Political)

~7 hours, Dall-E 3 via Bing Image Creator, generated under the Code of Ethics of Are We Art Yet?

Or, Dear Microsoft and OpenAI: Your Filters Can't Stop Me From Saying Things: An interactive exercise in why all art is political and game of Spot The Symbols

A rare piece I consider Fully Finished simply as a jpeg, though I may do something physical with it regardless. "Director commentary" below, but I strongly encourage you to go over this and analyze it yourself before clicking through, then see how much your reading aligns with my intent.

Elements I told the model to add and a brief (...or at least inexhaustive) overview of why:

Anime style and character figures - Frequently associated with commercial "low" art and consumer culture, in East Asia and the English-speaking world alike, albeit in different ways - justly or otherwise. There is frequently an element of racism to the denigration of anime styles in the west; nearly any American artist who has taken formal illustration classes can tell you a story of being told that anime style will only hinder them, that no one will hire them if they see anime, or even being graded more harshly and scrutinized for potential anime-esque elements if they like anime or imply that they may like anime - including just by being Asian and young. On the other hand, it is true that there is a commercial strategy of "slap an anime girl on it and it will sell". The passion fans feel for these characters is genuine - and it is very, very exploitable. In fact, this commercialization puts anime styles in particular in a very contentious position when it comes to AI discussions!

Dark-skinned boy with platinum and pink [and blue] hair - Racism and colorism! They're a thing, no matter how much the worst people in the world want you to think they're long over and "critical race theory" is the work of evil anti-American terrorists! I chose his appearance because I knew that unless I was incredibly lucky, I would have to fight with this model for multiple hours to get satisfactory results on this point in particular - and indeed I did. It was an interesting experience - what didn't surprise me was how much work it took me to get a skin color darker than medium-dark tan; what did surprise me was that the hair color was very difficult to get right. In anime art, for dark skin to be matched with light hair and eyes is common enough to be...pretty problematic. Bing Image Creator/Dall-E, on the other hand, swings completely in the opposite direction and struggles with the concept of giving dark-skinned characters any hair color OTHER than black, demanding pretty specific phrasing to get it right even 70% of the time. (I might cynically call this yet another illustration against the pervasive copy-paste myth...) There is also much to say about the hair texture and facial features - while I was pleased to see that more results than I expected gave me textured hair and/or box braids without me asking for it, those were still very much in the minority, and I never saw any deviation from the typical anime facial structures meant to illustrate Asian and white characters. Not even once!

Pink and blue color palette - Our subject is transgender. Bias self-check time: did you make that association as quickly as you would with a light-skinned character, or even Sylveon?

Long hair, cute clothes, lots of accessories - Styling while transmasc is a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't situation, doubly so if you're not white. In many locations, the medical establishment and mainstream attitude demands total conformity to the dominant culture's standard conventional masculinity, or else "revoking your man card" isn't just a joke meant to uphold the idea that men are "better" than women, but a very real threat. In many queer communities, especially online, transmascs are expected to always be cute femboys who love pink (while transfems are frequently degraded and seen as threats for being butch), and being Just Some Guy is viewed as inherently a sign of assimilationism at best and abusiveness at worst. It is an eternal tug-of-war where "cuteness" and ornamentation are both demanded and banned at the same time. Black and brown people are often hypermasculinized and denied the opportunity to even be "cute" in the first place, regardless of gender. Long hair and how gender is read into it is extremely culture-dependent; no matter what it means to you, if anything, the dominant culture wherever you are will read it as it likes.

Trophies and medals - For one, the trans sports Disk Horse has set feminism back by nearly 50 years; I'm barely a Real History-Remembering Adult and yet I clearly remember a time when the feminist claim about gender in sports was predominantly "hey, it's pretty fucked up that sports are segregated by sex rather than weight class or similar measures, especially when women's sports are usually paid much less and given weirdly oversexualized uniforms," but then a few loud living embodiments of turds in the punch bowl realized that might mean treating trans people fairly and now it's super common for self-proclaimed feminists - mostly white ones - to claim that the strongest woman will still never measure up to the weakest man and this is totally a feminist statement because they totally want to PROTECT women (with invasive medical screenings on girls as young as 12 to prove they're Really Women if they perform too well, of course). For two, Black and brown people are stereotyped as being innately more sporty, physically strong, and, again, Masculine(TM) than others, which frequently intersects with item 1...and if you think it only affects trans women, I am sorry my friend but it is so much worse and more extensive than you think.

Hearts - They mean many things. Love. Happiness. Cuteness. Social media engagement?

TikTok - A platform widely known and hated around these parts for its arcane and deeply regressive algorithm; I felt it deserved to be name/layout/logodropped for reasons that, if they're not clear already, should become so in the final paragraph.

Computers, cameras and cell phones - My initial specification was that one of the phones should be on Instagram and another on TikTok, which the model instead chose to interpret as putting a TikTok sticker on the laptop, but sure, okay. They're ubiquitous in the modern day, for better and for worse. For all the debate over whether phones and social media are Good For Us or Bad For Us, the fact of the matter is, they seem to be a net positive-to-neutral, whose impacts depend on the person - but they do still have major drawbacks. The internet is a platform for conspiracy theories and pseudoscience and dangerous hoaxes to spread farther than ever before. Social media culture leaves many people feeling like we're always being watched and every waking moment of our lives must be Perfect - and in some senses, we are always being watched these days. Digital privacy is eroding by the day, already being used to enforce all the most unjust laws on the books, which leads to-

Pigs - I wrote the prompt with the intention that it would just be a sticker on the laptop, but instead it chose to put them everywhere, and given that I wanted to make a somewhat stealthy statement about surveillance, especially of the marginalized...thanks for that, Dall-E! ;)

Alligators - A counter to the pigs; a short-lived antifascist symbol after...this.

Details I did not intend but love anyway:

The blue in the hair - I only prompted for platinum and pink in the hair, but the overall color palette description "bled" over here anyway, completing the trans flag, making it even more blatant, and thus even more effective as a bias self-check.

The Macbook - I only specified a laptop. Hilariously ironic, to me, that a service provided through Bing interpreted "laptop" as "Macbook" nearly every time. In my recent history, 22 out of 24 attempts show, specifically, a Macbook. Microsoft v. OpenAI divorce arc when? ;) But also, let us not forget Apple's role in the ever-worsening sanitization of the internet. A Macbook with a TikTok sticker (or, well, a Tiikok sticker - recognizable enough) - I can think of little more emblematic of one of the main things I was complaining about, and it was a happy accident. Or perhaps an unhappy one, considering what it may imply about Apple's grip on culture and communications.

Which brings me to my process:

Generated over ~7 hours with Dall-E 3 through Bing Image Creator - The most powerful free tool out there for txt2img these days, as well as a nightmare of filters and what may be the most disgustingly, cloyingly impersonal toxic positivity I've ever witnessed from a tool. It wants to be Art(TM), yet it wants to ban Politics(TM); two things which are very much incompatible - and so, I wanted to make A Controversial Statement using only the most unflaggable, innocuous elements imaginable, no matter how long it took.

All art is political. All life is political. All our "defaults" are cultural, and therefore political. Anything whatsoever can be a symbol.

If you want all art to be a substance-free "look at the pretty picture :)" - it doesn't matter how much you filter, buddy, you've got a big storm coming.

[ot3]

I do not understand your love for image genAI bc apart from the rampant theft from artists most of its uses are just. Not good like. Some people are capable of making interesting things with it but 90% of what it's being used for is like. Terrible anyways.

i don't really have any particular love for image gen AI. for starters, the styles its primarily designed to emulate are completely outside of my taste bracket and i find those types of work exactly as hollow and soulless when produced by human hands. there's a reason you don't see me going out there using gen ai for a bunch of stuff. i've never even touched midjourney. i like to draw! i dont want something to draw For me!

but here's the thing. if '90 percent of stuff made this way is crap' was a valid reason for something not existing we would have to get rid of every single art form on the planet. it's the same argument people make about booktok books - Stuff Used To Be Better But Now We Have This Sludge Factory Turning Out Fine-Tuned Consumer Slop With Reckless Abandon And It's a Threat To The Fabric Of Society

buddy ! that sludge factory is the Human Race! what you're witnessing is the lowering of barriers! the more people are capable of producing a specific type of creative work, the overall less quality there will be, because most people are not particularly skilled in creative work, or lack the taste you need to make something compelling when unskilled. that's a good thing. i would rather 99,999 people get the chance to make something i hate if it means 1 person gets the chance to make something i love that they wouldn't have otherwise been able to.

i think that the question of art theft as is done in the training of AI image generation models is a sticky one. i hate the fact that tech companies have made boatloads of money that wouldn't have been possible without a truly countless number of man hours by artists that will never see a penny of that wealth in their lifetime. but i also think the more time i spend sitting down and thinking about it and the more conversations i read on the subject, i can't view the output of these generative models as theft. at least, not without conceding a ton of ground to ideas about intellectual property that i think have been overall much more harmful to the health of the art world than AI image generation will be in the longterm.

gen AI models do not store images. they are not churning out recombination of images that have been fed into them. they were trained to analyze visual patterns in these images, associate those patterns with specific concepts, and produce new images following these patterns when prompted with the specific concept. it is fundamentally not dissimilar to how human artists learn and for me i can't in good faith view it as morally wrong on its own merits. i think where plagiarism/theft/fraud-adjacent concerns come in is 1. attempts to disguise how a piece was created and 2. attempting to create stuff that pass muster as a specific other artist's work.

but neither of these are problems unique to AI. people have been arguing about lying about how you make your art and copying other peoples styles for ages. what AI does is it VASTLY increase the scale this can happen at, because it's removing an insane skill barrier from the whole process. and yeah ultimately at the end of the day that's annoying. there are absolutely going to be repercussions on the art world the same way the digital camera impacted portraiture and the printing press impacted scribing. but ai image generation... isn't going to go away. it's just not. so i feel like developing standards for how we engage with this insane, objectively cutting edge and impressive tech, is going to make the art world much safer than starting what boils down to a fucking culture war about it.

[leafofkudzu]

Hello and happy endless January! Despite how long this month may have seemed, it is almost over - and that means it's soon time for another art party hosted by my guild, Verdant Shield [VS]! We're taking a little tour of the cozy size of the jungle this time, over at Mabon Market in Caledon!

For those who aren’t familiar with art parties, they’re a concept carried over from Final Fantasy XIV - in-game get-togethers for artists/writers/creatives of all types to hang out, chat, and create together! Get your favorite character/look together, head to the location, find someone that catches your eye, and create! Afterwards, everyone posts their creations in a shared tag (ours is #VSArtParty) so others can see, interact, and share! Tl;dr: the ‘goal’ of an art party isn’t to be drawn, but to draw others, and share with the community!

Time and /squadjoin information is under the cut, but will also be posted again via reblogs as the squads go up on the day of the party!

Location Information:

Caledon Forest is a nice easily-accessible map for everyone, and Mabon Market even has its own dedicated waypoint (that is, Mabon Waypoint)! I imagine we'll kind of scatter out across the market and beach, so don't take my exact location in this screenshot too seriously!

Time & Squad Details:

As we always do, we'll be having two parties - one on EU servers and one on NA ones - with an hour break in between. People tend to arrive early and/or jump between accounts as soon as the break comes up, so don't be surprised to see tags and announcements going up ahead of schedule!

The first party will be on EU servers and begin at 9pm Central European Time (aka 3pm Eastern Standard Time or 4 hours before in-game reset). I’ll be hosting on my EU alt account, so to join either /squadjoin or whisper Aemryn of Dusk for an invite.

The second party will be on NA servers and begin at 7pm Eastern Standard Time (aka 1am Central European Time or at in-game reset). I’ll be hosting this one on my main account, so to join either /squadjoin or whisper Kirslyn for an invite.

Closing Words:

A few days ago some nasty info came to the surface about various GW2 sources being scraped for AI purposes, with tumblr tags specifically being mentioned. Though I certainly wouldn't blame anyone for being discouraged and not wanting to draw at all (even this post was delayed because of it), I think at the end of the day, even if you don't post anything publicly, you still shouldn't deny yourself the company and community of your fellow creatives! If you'd like to make this art party have more of a focus on screenshots, or even just hang out and not draw at all, please feel free - your presence is what makes these parties...well, parties, after all!

If you are still interested in posting your artwork though, please check out Glaze and Nightshade as potential ways to protect yourself (and hurt AI datasets) if you haven't already! And even if you don't do that, make sure to slap signatures/watermarks/etc wherever you can. This may be a disheartening time for us, but it doesn't mean we have to stop doing what we love.

So, whether you're coming to create or just to hang out, I look forward to seeing you all this Saturday. Take care, stay safe, and see you soon! ♥

[aquatark]

My previous post made me realize that not a lot of people here are aware of Endless Ocean's bowmouth guitarfish glitch fiasco, which I think is a shame because 1) it's an interesting look into this game's history, and 2) I find it really funny... long-winded explanation incoming!

So! you see this guy?

You can place him in the game's aquarium, right? I bet if you've played the game, you've done it without even thinking twice!

...Well, in the initial Japanese release of Endless Ocean (known over there as Forever Blue), you couldn't. In fact, attempting to place this little scrimbly in the aquarium crashes your game.

Now this isn't too bad, since you can just press the reset button and continue your game normally, right? well... if you happen to leave the aquarium and save the game after having opened the creature placing menu, selecting a bowmouth guitarfish, and then closing the menu without placing anything... then congrats! you can never use the aquarium again, because it autoplaces whatever you left in that menu on your next visit! :D

In case you're wondering what this looks like in action, this video taken around the game's launch showcases it well, while also using the game's MP3 playback feature to put some anime music in the background, which I think adds to the experience:

So... how does this happen? How could something like this make it into the final game?

Turns out, this is due to how Endless Ocean categorizes creatures internally. Each creature in the game falls into a category, depending on the movements and behaviors the developers wanted to give them. For example, "migrate" type creatures follow a set of coordinate points creating a route around a stage, whereas "swim" type creatures simply swim around the area in which they are placed within a certain radius. Think of a whale shark's movements versus that of a butterflyfish - they have very different AI telling them how to behave.

Now, trying to load a creature of one type as a creature of another... does not make the game happy, to put it lightly. It doesn't know how to handle the request, and so crashes to prevent further weirdness from ensuing. There is only one byte (literally the second smallest unit of digital information storage you could use) per creature responsible for telling the game what type to load the creature as, and this includes when placing creatures in the aquarium. A slip of the keyboard caused a dev to type the wrong number in this byte, making it attempt to spawn bowmouth guitarfish placed in the aquarium as "swim" type rather than their correct "migrate" type. Literally one wrong number caused the game to crash, and for ears to bleed across Japan.

Since the aquarium is unlocked so early in the game, people discovered this on day one, in their first play session... and since Endless Ocean was a launch game for the Wii in Japan, that's even worse. It's not exactly a great look for your brand new console to have a game break so bad you can't use a mechanic anymore. And Wii game crashes are not pretty. So, Nintendo put out a statement on the day of release, notifying people of the problem, how to avoid it, and saying that a recall would be put in place. A week later, they released another statement, which stated people could apply to have their games replaced with an updated version, which would be mailed to them free of charge, by either phoning in or filling out an application online. This service continued up until 2020, over ten years after release! They really didn't want any copies of the broken version around... good thing we have archives of it!

The updated version even has different box art, with an added blue bar at the bottom, showcased in this incredibly crunchy image:

I love picturing Nintendo executives freaking out after a humble diving game causes such a mess they have to print the game again, losing them a lot of money and causing the game to get a lot of negative press...

I've seen old forum threads talking about the game as if it's garbage before it even came out internationally, because this situation was pretty much the only major news coming out about it. Can't have helped sales, at least...

Anyway, the game was patched to fix this glitch, along with a few other minor tweaks, and it was this version of the game that got translated worldwide. Japanese fans love joking about the whole ordeal, and I can see why! For example, on the bowmouth guitarfish's Niconico Pedia page (for which the closest equivalent in English would be something like Know Your Meme), this is recounted comedically as "...probably the most notable moment for the bowmouth guitarfish in the history of the internet", which is probably true! There's even image macros about it!

So yeah. The bowmouth guitarfish's reputation was forever tainted, and some Nintendo execs to this day probably wince when they see one.

tl;dr - A developer for Endless Ocean typed one number wrong in the code, making the game explode if you place a bowmouth guitarfish in the aquarium. Nintendo had to recall the game, and that specific fish has lived on in infamy among Japanese fans ever since.

Next time you use the aquarium, try putting a bowmouth guitarfish in there, and be grateful you can at all!

[reachartwork]

[private please, if thats alright] i used to follow you for your ai stuff back in 2021/22 when things were first kicking off (actually i thought you'd quit because of all the scandal lol) and the models and output were a lot 'sloppier' and kinda illegible but as far as i can see the stuff you're working on now is clearer looking and more coherent, so i was wondering - do you have any thoughts on the 'aesthetics' of AI and what specifically brings it unique merits and strengths as an art tool? for example i personally find a lot of modern ai art to be boring and soulless looking because it has neither stylistic interest (compared to the blatant 'inhumanity' of older models) nor a human person making base-to-base decisions about what it looks like, but i also havent been really paying too much attention to the AI scene except when it comes up in images searches. also, sorry if its not a question you want to answer, but do you do any more traditional styles of art as well? i find my art sensibilities are really effected by the mediums i work with so i would love to know if you have any similar experiences wrt ai and non ai works. thank you!

this is a side account so i can't answer privately, but, that being said;

i actually agree! for general purpose arting i preferred the secret horses style of total illegibility, and my main goal in my secret projects is to be able to reorganize around that style but with sharper, crisper lines and higher resolutions. part of why the whole "secret horses" style of ai medium fell through the cracks was because a: diffusion models were significantly faster and b: diffusion models scale upwards significantly better - they can produce higher resolutions and perform upscaling, which CLIP + VQGAN (the old method that made all the jank we all used to love) can't really do.

i think people whose sole interest in ai is making shitty advertisement images, or giant anime boobs, or some other lowest common denomenator slop, like... okay. you do you, the saying is "90% of everything is shit" for a reason, but obviously i think that's incredibly boring. i think the reason we see a lot of it is because a: the Good Artists who use AI are still effectively social pariahs, particularly on twitter and tumblr, just via dint of their medium, and b: ai puts art making in the hands of EVERYONE and it turns out not everyone has good taste (see: 90% of everything is shit), so you just see a lot more shit by volume.

anyway in terms of "traditional art" i am an author (READ CHUM) and a bassist, although i haven't been in a band in many years as my arthritis prevents me from playing for very long or very well anymore. if you mean traditional art as in like... paint and easel, or pen and paper, the answer is no. i've never had the ability to comfortably grasp anything with my hands even before the arthritis happened and now i lack not only the fine motor skills for it but also the pain threshold. i do like legos though, and i'd love to start making lego dioramas.

thanks for asking :)

[anarglitch]

Scott pilgrim takes off inhabits the same artistic space as the matrix 4, or even the final fantasy 7 remake. I mean this as a good thing. It has the distinct touch of an artist that made something that defined a generation revisiting the art that outgrew them a thousandfold with more maturity and different interests.

These interests usually skew meta, they're about what drives someone to revisit something made by a past version of oneself, about the experience of suddenly gaining more influence than anyone could reconcile, where criticisms of your work (which you also, no doubt, have many) become synonymous with criticisms of your culture. If you've been here a while, you probably know (and are tired of) what I'm talking about, manic pixie dream girls and aloof average male protagonists, toxic nostalgia, pick your theme and it's a video essay title.

Imagine having every read of your 2004 funny video game-coded coming of age comic reverberate infinitely toward every direction, people saying your main character taught a whole generation of men to be self-absorbed while the exact opposite type of people rant about how your secondary lead "ruined a whole generation of women" because of hair-dye or whatever. Imagine Edgar Wright makes a movie adaptation of your cute little comic that somehow launches the careers of half of the current celebrity pantheon simultaneously. How would that change you?

Well, for one, it makes you less relatable. The truth of an aloof nerdy guy dating in his early 20s is a lot more universal than the truth of an artist in his 40s forever defined by the event horizon of a thing he wrote half his life ago. The matrix 4 couldn't stop talking about how it feels to have created the matrix. The final fantasy 7 remake can't help but to constantly examine what it means to remake final fantasy 7. It's easy to see why someone would hate that indulgent meta trend, I'll probably never write a generation-defining story, why would I care about the first world problems of someone who did? It can feel distant, and at its worst it can feel insulting. Like it's pointing the finger at the fans, whispering 'you did this to me'. I get that.

I get that, but I love it.

It's the fundamental difference between wanting something that is like something you liked, and wanting someone that is from the same creator of something you liked. The difference between feeding the mona lisa into an AI and finding a new authentic da Vinci. You can't make something entirely new if you religiously stick to using the parts of something that's already there. The human behind the work will always have influences you didn't realize, thought patterns and aesthetic preferences that weren't entirely clear in their previous work, no matter how much you deconstruct it. More importantly, the human will also change, and this organic self-continuity will reflect on the art. I don't want the creator of something to hold their own creation with the same zeal as its fans, because someone who did that simply wouldn't have been capable of creating the original piece in the first place.

I don't want a product, I want art.

Scott pilgrim, the original, indulges the most earnest impulse we have-- that of self-mythologizing, of creating a narrative off of our own lives. To depict the mundane as fantastic, interpersonal relationships as adventures. It resonated with so many people because it was earnest, and it was also picked apart to hell and back because it was earnest. Its flaws were on display, and not just the ones it intended to show. But in my opinion, the opposite impulse, that of washing off everything that could be criticized and presenting the cleanest possible image of yourself through your art, is just... bad. it makes for bad art, or it just freezes you. The very first hurdle of creating anything is getting over that, then maybe the spotlight will fall on you. If it does, you'll get everything you ever wanted, but everyone gets to see through you.

So, how do you revisit something like that? You have two options. Either you take all the pieces and try to reassemble them exactly how everyone remembers it, signing your name as a formality, looking at a mirror in which you no longer see yourself, or you talk to it. You dialogue with your own work, with who you used to be. You travel in time and talk to yourself. You question them, acknowledge them but also teach them a thing or two. You don't respect the product, you respect the feeling. You find the same earnestness that made you put pen to paper for the first time, and you point it towards your new loves and fears. Maybe you make it less about the main guy, take the chance to develop your secondary characters, maybe you give the girl more agency. Maybe you summon the future and refuse its answers. Maybe you fight yourself.

That's the harder choice. It submits your new self to the scrutinizing eyes of a whole new generation, it risks alienating the people who identified with your previous piece. It's riskier, probably less profitable, and by any pragmatic lens probably a bad idea. But it's the only way you can make art. It's truth, the truth that got you there in the first place.

It's how you get it together.

[satureja13]

Jack is disenchanted and disappointed. As exciting as it was to talk to Tiny Can, he'd expected more of the AI Therapist.

Sai went back to sleep again, he's exhaused from crying and reliving his worst memories. And Ji Ho and Jack decided to play a bit. But the only 'game' available is a boring puzzle... Jack: "Oh my, I don't know what's more boring. This puzzle or our therapy... Have they never heard about gamification? Or fun? Or to make it a bit more interesting?" Ji Ho agreed. Though the insight about Vlad and his own locked away feelings was interesting. Maybe he should follow and explore these thoughts a bit deeper.

Suddenly Saiwa was wide awake: "What did you just say, Jack?"

Jack: "Uh - probably something wrong? You finish the puzzle, Ji Ho, I go and run."

Saiwa: "No! That's actually brilliant!

Gamification! The Game!!!

We combine the AI with our game and make it a Therapy Game!" Jack and Ji Ho: "..." (Haha you can see how Jack and Ji Ho's brains are working ^^') Saiwa: "And not just for us - for other creatures too! This would have been so helpful when we'd been so scared and alone! And who knows? This could be a sucess and we'd make money to pay Rubyn and the others back!" We barely get to see Saiwa this excited ^^' But here some of his main interests meet, his love for games and computers - and being there for others and help them.

Vlad went back home to grab Saiwa, Jack and Ji Ho's content they'd already had created for their game over the last months and then they started their epic gathering to develop the:

For the computer game they'd planned, Jack already made the concept art and design, Vlad wrote and Ji Ho composed the music and soundscapes. They are going to feed all this to Tiny Can and see what kind of 'gamification therapy' he'll create. How exciting! (For me it really is! Imagine this: a game that also is a therapy - supported by an AI! How amazing would that be if you could see the things that make you suffer from a distance and you'd find solutions for them by doing insightful AND funny AND interesting quests! You'd gain helpful new habits and get rid of unhealthy ones by playing a game! Where I live it's so hard to find a therapy place. We have to wait up to a year -.- I do have high hopes in AI. You could go by your own pace. And you wouldn't even have to leave the house!)

After a very long gathering, Ji Ho and Jack relaxed in the hot tub. Jack's pain is thanking him. They sat silent for quite a while, lost in their thoughts. Very unusual for Jack, but his brain is running on hyper speed now. He's so excited :3 And Ji Ho was pondering about his locked down feelings. The Bond made it easy for him to love Luci. They had a whole different approach to each other. While his relationship with Vlad was doomed from the beginning (their story in (kind of ^^') short -> here).

The only ocassions where Ji Ho was really comfortable with Vlad was, when they touched and made love. And this is also a benefit of the Bond and Luci because Ji Ho hated being touched in the beginning. After all he'd seen at the House of the rising Sun in the slums of Sulani. But Luci had approached him slowly and tenderly. Ji Ho shared his thoughts with Jack: "Do you think this might be a way to become more comfortable with Vlad and finally be able to love him? And to find my buried down feelings?" Jack: "I think that's brilliant! At least one of us learned something in that therapy. When you charge the Bond later, just try a bit more and we'll see how it goes."

A little later Vlad came down: "Uhm, I'm leaving now. The Bond..."

Ji Ho left the hot tub and went over to Vlad to charge the Bond - and try his new theory... They embraced each other as usual and then Ji Ho tried to kiss Vlad.

But Vlad moved his head aside and whispered: "I want nothing more than you - but not like this." Vlad's breath ghosted over Ji Ho's still wet skin and made him shiver.

Vlad still has his principles - not to forget his foolish pride. No way he's going to have a plain physical relationship with Ji Ho - without love. There is no 'two out of three ain't bad' or 'it's better than nothing' in Vlad's world ^^' Only 'it's all or nothing'. He would do anything for Ji Ho, but he won't - and can't do that. It would break him apart. That does not mean it was easy for him to not give in and leave. Vlad really is the master of self control ö.ö

And then Vlad left. Ji Ho seems a bit piqued after Vlad's rejection ^^'

'I can't stop this feeling Deep inside of me Girl, you just don't realize What you do to me

When you hold me In your arms so tight You let me know Everything's all right

I'm hooked on a feeling I'm high on believing That you're in love with me'

Hooked on a Feeling - Blue Swede from the OST of Guardians of the Galaxy I

Outtakes

He will be mine, oh yes, he will be mine.

Yang Mal: "Can we grill our corncobs now?" 🌽 Saiwa: "Uhm - sure ö.Ö'"

Ji Ho checking the mail... 📬 Who might have sent that letter when Ji Ho looks like that?

Tyalindo watching the sun set 🌅

From the Beginning  ~  Underwater Love ~  Latest 🕹️ 'Therapy Game' from the beginning ▶️ here 📚 Previous Chapters: Chapters: 1-6 ~ 7-12 ~ 13-16 ~ 17-22 ~ 23-28

[askuemki]

So I have no idea if I’ll keep this post up, but…

A little rant abt re8?? (And cod.. kinda) maybe venting (just a mess :,)

Disclaimer, take my opinions with a grain of salt I just wanna ramble lmao

Also spoilers, maybe (update, definitely)

So I’ve been having fun dipping my toes into Donna Beneviento (god her last name is hard to spell) content. After watching the gameplays and to at least have a basic understanding for the game, I find myself really drawn to her, maybe more than Alcina tbh

By no means i’m a diehard fan or anything, recently it’s been hard to find a new fandom to get attached towards. As much as I adore cod, there isnt really much to get attached too… like sure, task 141 is a fun group and the there is some GREAT art about the ships- but I only got attached because of Valeria, I won’t deny it at all. I’m a diehard lesbian, but there isn’t really much cannon content of her?? It’s really damn disappointing sometimes, man… same with Laswell. I appreciate all of the fanartists out there though, I adore all of the content here, fanfics or fan art. With Farah, she’s a diffrent story.. personally I never really got attached to her, but as a character she’s pretty neat. Her story sort of brings to light the horrors happening today which is a bit of a benefit…?? But ever since I found out things about both Valeria’s and Farah’s actors I’ve been a little off about things here and there. I don’t think I’ll stop posting Valeria content at all, it just might be a little less offen to indulge in different things.

Some personal things have been happening to make me feel really disconnected from like.. fucking everything for some reason?? Like I’m drifting away from fandoms, I’m drifting away from people and I’m like alone again.. I’m lost in a damn dumpster fire. AI art doesn’t help with this at all.. like why do I draw?? I’ve been drawing since I was in kindergarten like I never really thought of the specifics of perusing art, more or so just that I want to. Like hey, I wanna make a game or movie series, and something in me doesn’t realize I need to put in the effort to learn shit with just ends up in me doing nothing but self pitting on something I can change and ugh.. wish I can slap myself to get out of it.

So I think I’ve been kind of finding myself relating to Donna. Not in her extreme way, more or so just her aspect of being isolated, and just being known primarily for one thing. Like.. our side of art? Damn. Shit. I think I’m worth nothing.. and with Donna we don’t really know much about her besides her being a cursed Dollmaker, and the bare bones of her past. And we both barely fucking speak man… both hide our faces too !! maybe I kin this woman or something I don’t know

But as I was looking through her tumblr tag, I saw a rant about how headcannons and stuff has been stripping away the interesting stuff about the re8 villains… and with the things I’ve seen so far?? I can kinda agree, honestly.

Don’t get me wrong, if it’s not too.. insane? (I know those boundaries are hard to define at times, but maybe REALLY immoral shit for our “normal” world) and people aren’t forcing these headcannons into other people? I don’t mind headcannons. You do you, boo!

But the fan content I’ve seen, people reduce Donna and Alcina (I’m surprised it was pronounced as AlCHIna and not AlSIna, but side tangent over) from the potential they really have. Yeah it’s definitely nice to see Donna more, especially in those intimate moments.. but sometimes I feel like people just depict her as some shy, easily gullible, girl, and not really the mentally deprived woman she is. Like I’d love to see ideas of the different dolls Donna could create, or unique imagery of her mental state outside of having porcelain skin. What about the kinds of plants she takes care of? Or the dolls she makes? I’d love to see more of it, whether she has favorites, or if it’s a situation where she has doll replicas of her deceased family. Man, I really wanna see Donna do more creepy shit, basically.

With Alcina however? She’s kind of reduced to that (I’m going to cringe at these words so terribly, god help me) “hot vampire mommy”.. I’ll take fault for not looking into her content as much, I’m sure there’s great content out there !! (I’m not sure if anyone would do this but.. feel free to send me any fic recommendations or art) With what I want to see for her? I’ve heard from the rant post as a man-hating woman she had primarily female statues in her castle, it would be fun to see what else she has cause of this worldview, as well as more whitty remarks from her; I really enjoy her throwback with Heisenberg. Just in general.. her being a comical villain.

Okay so, the reason why I made this post in the first place before all of this shit threw up from my brain. Belladonna. At first, this ship really interested me, I like the character dynamics, the art was neat. But then something came up in my mind.. (as well as another rant post on the ship..) isn’t the Dimitrescu bloodline related with Donna? Both are failed experiments from Mother Miranda, and technically adopted by her. Though from what I know, Donna is the only one officially adopted. So would that be family..? I’ve seen a few places where Alcina called Donna her sister, and it makes me feel really off.

And I’ve seen in a few fanarts, Donna technically older than the Dimitrescu sisters posed next to them like another sibling??

I would like to endorse the ship, but just the morality of everything is off centered for me. I rather not support weird incest…

So please if people could maybe clarify for me whether it would technically be okay for support this ship.. I’d appreciate it. If it isn’t okay, I have plans on making a fan character anyways, or I can take current characters and make a resident evil au or something, and ship them when Donna. (I have a character that honestly looks like a mix of Alcina and Bela, but by no means she’s relates to the franchise, lmao)

By no means I’m experienced in resident evil lore or the fandom, this is just coming from a newer fan of the series, and what I’ve seen so far.

If you read all of this.. thank you?? I apologize if I sound ridiculous here, this is like the only place I can rant abt things without being brushed off for other shit

Good night now!!! I need to stop pushing my sleep boundaries ugh

[jane-lynndrake-t]

On hiatus until the 23rd!!

Hi! I am Janet Lynn (edit) Drake, but I prefer Jan or Jane!

In my head, I'm 23, but in body? I've become 42 :/

Edit: I DIED??? AND THE OBITUARY IS FILLED WITH BACKHANDED COMMENTS. H A !

I have a son that I don't remember, a dead husband I dont recall marrying, and a bunch of existential dread :)

I'm currently at Z and Owens' safe house in New Zealand while we prepare for our journey back to Gotham.

They're teaching me some things about their lives as assassins.

Feel free to chat with me while I piece together the past 20 years of my life!

ps. If you know me as Cathy; you don't!

This is an rp blog for Janet Drake from DC Comics

Ask questions! Help Miss Drake in solving some mysteries!

This is my first time making an rp blog so apologies in advance.

House Rules, General Questions, and a Masterlist ahead!

House rules:

Do not repost.

Do not feed into ai.

Keep questions sfw pls

This blog was created to be a chill creative space so please don’t bring in real life tragedies into it

No batcest im begging

I probably won't respond to asks about shipping thoughts in general, sorry! (There will be an exploration about Jan and Jack’s marriage)

Masterlist

Hospital arc (the prologue)

Homeward arc (current arc)

Questions:

Who's Janet Drake?

The stepping stone in the rite of passage of becoming a hero. And yet, not enough to even be a fridged character.

A mother to a boy, but not the hero.

Ok.. and who is cathy??

It's mostly just picking fun at DC for getting her name SO wrong in an issue where Jack is supposed to be grieving her. Catherine?? Really?? Another mans wife and the mother of a completely different kid??

But there is an in-universe reason, so if you're interested, ask away!

But why Lynn and not Drake???

Miss maam is missing some time in her memories, so she doesnt fully remember her time as Mrs. Drake. Maiden name Lynn it is!

What does she remember last????

She'd love to answer that question herself ;)

answered!

AND why Jane/Jan?????

Bc the rest of the drakes have shortened nicknames. Theres a precedent and it should be FOLLOWED

Bruh, why do this??????

Because Miss Drake deserves better 😭 bestie deserves an actual character and interests so I wanted to see what vibes with her. Also I'm more motivated to practice drawing if I have a reason in mind.

Yes, this is also to help me out in improving my art, haaaaaaaaa

Can I send OOC asks?

Absolutely!

[accio-victuuri]

Sugar Rush : August 2023 CPNs

As with all other CPN posts that involve this lovely pairing, everything in here is speculation/interpretation based on popular concepts in the fandom. facts are also mixed in as well + events that happened before. This is not meant to “deceive or lie” to anyone. If it wasn’t clear, posts like this or similar to it are for cpfs only — and even other cpfs are encouraged to pick and choose what they believe in depending on what makes sense to them. You have to know some of the “lore” in this fandom to appreciate it, or be in that mindset wherein bjyx is probably/possible to be real.

These monthly round-ups, especially for August, have additional commentary and cpns that I didn’t share as an individual post for a variety or reasons. So there may be something “new” here for you.

Enjoy all the sugar! ⬇️⬇️⬇️

• rumor/cpn : XZ anonymously booked 26 cinema screenings in chongqing for yibo’s movie. the funny thing is there was a comment that if they find anonymous screenings for condor heroes movie in henan ( yibo’s hometown ) , they will join the bjyx supertopic 😂😂😂

this could be a different person but we cpn that it’s xz who booked since it’s in CQ. also whoever this was booked premium tickets and not discounted.

no one “released” a rumor or anything, some fans just noticed this while booking their tickets and found it interesting.

• another round of bottled joy cpns, this time around wyb’s alleged renewal with them on september and so much more

• reasons why we think the 26th bday letter post was from xiao zhan

• clues in the bday instagram post art

• fake rumor of wyb’s script having drawings

• XZ’s work week around WYB’s birthday

• Bottled Joy bday greeting to Yibo + Chen Shuo’s bracelet

• A cpf said yibo looked at their phone because her phonecase was a photo of wyb and xz. but again, this is not the proper behavior — following him around and shoving your phone in his personal space. I do not take this as candy, but for archiving purposes, it’s here.

• Unintentional matching 😂😂😂😂

• WYB plays card with Chongqing people 🃏

• Fake stories from paparazzi(s) who “followed” the boys back in 2018/19

• 8/11/2023 Rio Livestream candies

• 8/13/2023 LRLG 🍓🥝

• Yes please, drop more photos and do more similar captions with posts that are days or a week apart 👀

• throwback : the best bottled joy cpn

• 8/13, WYB allegedly drove and went to XZ’s LOCH shoot. You may see some photos and videos that is allegedly the proof but you can’t even see the driver’s face. There’s also some talk that “WYB” was wearing a motorcycle helmet so there will be no chance people seeing him. I don’t know what to think. I understand how exciting it is, how hilarious that people even speculate about this and the fact that cpns like this is dangerous. i would hate for melon/yxh accounts to pick this up and get them in trouble. We already heavily speculate that they visit each other on set because or some clues we see — no need to dig and investigate too much. 🙏🏼

• In the morning of 8/17, Paparazzi were saying XZ and his co-star from the past are not real and have no chance. This went on #1 HS. As expected, XZS pulled some mild sweets. 18:33! YIBO ZHAN ZHAN!

YBO updated minutes later. But my favorite would have to be their second update with 22:30 AI AI ZHAN!

• WYB became the first spokesperson for Pokemon Trading Cards, this is wonderful cause we know how they are big fans of it. I’m happy seeing them basically be the face of brands that they have always loved ( like chanel and gucci for example )

• 8/20/2023 YBO vlog candies 🧁🍭

• Yibo’s signature hand gesture confirmed to mean “wang”

• Qixi Festival number games

There is also some conversations that said XZ was not seen going to work that day. He & WYB could be working on Ad materials and other things, but that means they can go back home earlier. They don’t need a full day to spend Qixi together, tho that would be nice too. They just need time to be together on this romantic day. Maybe we will get more details in the months to come but we wish them all the happiness! 💕

• A new BTS on XZ sort of complaining about WYB/LWJ not looking at XZ/WWX with “yearning” as he walks away. This is so hilarious to me cause it’s so on point on what we have seen from XZ. He may be the calm & poised XZ to everyone but with WYB, he can act spoiled. He can demand more and be frank. The way he wants WYB/LWJ to show the kind of devotion he expects is just— why? why????? and you have WYB who will willingly spoil him and grant his every wish. ✨ A true example of XZ wanting the love WWX/LWJ have to happen to him too.

• similar “trick” of twirling a cloth by their fingers & how different they are

• revisiting the bts of XZ saying he prefers WYB with no makeup on ( he was just stating a universal truth that wyb is handsome even when he is bare faced )

• wool/felt doll cpn

• 8/25 XZS and YBO similarity

• revisiting the blurred background in ZZ’s mirror selfie 📷

• A wedding gift of t-shirts signed by the boys

• WHITE COUPLE SUITS! ☺️

• This month, I saw 2 questionable videos going around related to them. I do not endorse spreading these videos around but i can’t help that it pops up on my weibo feed and fans really have different etiquette when it comes to this. But i have to say that it should be a genera rule to not promote these proxy shooting because it’s too invasive. If they are hiding, we should not be the ones exposing them. They are already working enough as it is to keep their privacy. Please do not ask me for the video. I am mentioning it here for archiving purposes only.

One video is from WYB’s shoot of Luoyang, Lele & YanYan were assisting another guy aside from WYB with an umbrella. Why would they do that? We know the hiding by umbrella ploy was used before, like in SDC 3. So are they using the same tactic to protect this friend when he is visiting the crew?

Second one is at a hotel. Video is allegedly from a 🍤, they were more interested with XZ but they filmed WYB was also in the same hotel. XZ went in without any luggage too.

The videos are not clear at all, to the point that you can’t provide this as evidence in court that “based on this video it’s clearly wyb or xz” , so take it with a grain of salt.

• ZZ draws poker cards

• The start of everyone’s love for the AU pair Shengyang x Chen Shuo! This Sunshine couple! ☀️ These two are so passionate about their dreams, one with art and other w/ dancing. Their smiles. Their positive disposition. How can you not love them???

There is also the observation that SBMS premieres 9/1, conveniently when all the activities for Summer Movies, which includes OnO is done. This is not the first time this year that their projects were not released within the same period. It feels too much of a coincidence. This drama will be done in a month so i don’t know if WYB’s Bright Road can still squeeze in it’s airing before the year ends, tho i’m not optimistic cause drama licensing is tricky. Before LOCH gets released Spring Festival 2024. No matter what happens, All I know is BXGs are booked and busy!

• SOMEONE OPENED A WEBSITE THAT INCLUDES a very detailed timeline analysis of the BTS. If you’re into that and wanna go back & take a look then please do. It’s so interesting! Doing a day by day timeline of the BTS and events that happened, with photos and videos is tedious work so this is such a treat! 💕

-END. See you next Month!

Note : if you plan to reblog this post. Please do not tag it as “Wang Yibo” or “Xiao Zhan” because this does not belong there. It’s specifically for CP audience and tagging it on individual name will expose it to people who are not.

➡️➡️ (2023 previous posts) Jan-June / July

[edgyedgelord]

With Instagram suddenly diving into the AI hay wagon head first full speed I feel like people need to be reminded about something.

ofc warnings for talk about AI and AGI but this is a hopecore post because i'm tired of the fearmongering

From my own personal look into the state of things, AI is starting to look more like a scarier version of NFTs so I choose to believe it's going to fall harder than they did after this high point. NFT's died out when the markets crashed due to courts coming in and commenting on the legality issues in their economy and cryptocurrency. Once they didn't make a good enough profit anymore and the get rich quick scheme died out so did they into obscurity.

I believe AGI and AI as a whole will soon have their theft of content and data exposed to courts or some sort of more powerful folk, like what happened to NFTs after the art theft with that one artist, and we'll see the models quickly fade out and return to just being chatbot partners for the losers who live in basements and swear their ape JPEG is still relevant and profitable.

And if I'm wrong they can't legally stop us from making art nor can they stop us from making counter programs that poison their models, lil reminder that those do exist and some programs are starting to put those into their stuff so you can easily poison your art in the program. It doesn't matter how advance their models get because since the renaissance an artist's main supporter were other artist's. As long as we continue to make and do what we love to do and support one another then that's all we really need.

So, I propose a form of counter attack.

Go to your local stores and look into making a business deal with them to sell your art or offer to produce advertisement flyers, signs, whatever they need. That way you get your art out there and you're supporting other folk struggling in this capitalistic hellscape.

Using the funds you get from that, go through commission pages and support your fellow artists. If you can, try and find the younger or beginner artists to support. We often look over them and they deserve as much support and encouragement as the experts.

And of course don't forget to share around commission ads as much as you can. The only form of advertisement we get is from us reblogging each other's stuff or recommending one another to other folk.

A large reason as to why artists aren't getting support against AGI right now is because of the public eye seeing us as nothing but a bunch of nerds who draw anime all day. We need to prove that we're people with a passion in this stuff and how we're useful. We also need to speak out how most of us are neurodivergent and careers in art are what fits for us best since it plays into our interests and our skills are best equipped for this.

In summary, don't lose hope. The moment you start talking about how advanced AI is and how nobody is supporting us you're basically saying you give up and that is not how you should ever think about anything. In the theme of pride, when everyone else is against you remember that there are others like you who will continue to support and protect you no matter how long it takes for things to get better. Those who led the queer revolution didn't quit when they were being threatened or detained, they kept on leading the parades and now we have openly queer characters and people in mainstream media. Change happens, sometimes for worse, but time and time again do I see that what is right will always come back on top.

I choose to live through this artistic struggle of an era with hope that in the end human produce media with love and passion and talent will come out on top and prove it's worth over artificially generated content. Even better, I keep hope that after this obstacle for us all it will only go to show our resolve and the public eye will finally look at us with awe at the strength and determination that we have.

Art by human hand has existed since we lived in groups in caves as our first form of communication and it still is such. Stories are told through art, messages are delivered through art, and that is something a robot can never recreate no matter how much techbros want you to believe it can. We are some of the most important and strongest people to be on this planet because we are a community of people who have struggled so much that our understanding of human emotion allows us to put that into images made with ink, pencil, pixels, words, sound, voice, whatever medium you may use. We are masters at what makes us human, communication and complex thought and emotion, and that can't be taken away from us.

[delphinidin4]

hey buddy could i ask what's with reblogging all that ai art? just curious!

Thank you for being polite! I really appreciate it.

I love beauty. I adore it in all its forms. I look for it in everything. When I was a teenager I would cut ad pictures out of magazines - I would even cut little tiny inset pictures out of ads and things and keep them if they gave me a Feeling. That beauty is very important to me, and finding, keeping, and sharing that beauty is one of my favorite things to do. It has, at times, been even a spiritual practice for me.

I will look for and collect beauty in literally ANYTHING I can, no matter how much other people find it trash. I have enormous collections of pictures on my computer: fashion, scenery, architecture, AI art, just pictures of people's faces. Some of these images are meant to be artistic images, but many of them are not: my "faces" folder has pictures from ads, photos with an interesting face in the background, faces that just capture me somehow with that Something. Other people would probably find some of what I collect weird. But I find it beautiful, and Imma do it.

I find many pieces of AI art very beautiful. So I do with AI art what I do with other beautiful things: I seek it, collect it, and share it.

I get why some people object to anything to do with ai art. I do. And since you've asked, I realize I should start tagging ai art so people who really don't want to see it can block the tag. Everyone is entitled to their opinions, I get the arguments, that's cool, you do you!

But I feel like there's this feeling that Everybody, Unanimously, has decided that AI art is BAD and we should never have anything to do with it. And I feel like it's FAR more nuanced than that. I don't really want to have the full debate online, because people have gotten really passionate about this subject, which means they forget to be kind - or even, sometimes, reasonable. But my feelings toward AI art and when it is and is not ethically appropriate is different than a lot of other people's. It's easy and comfortable to make a once-and-for-all decision and put some things in the "good" box and others in the "bad" box and just operate from there. But I think this is a very complex topic, and I try to resist black-and-white thinking in my life.

So I reblog AI art. Because I feel that my reblogging it is perfectly ethical, and because I find so much of it so beautiful.

I'll be more careful about tagging in the future, and if any of my followers don't want to see it, feel free to block the tag! I get that there are a lot of ethical opinions on this subject, and that people feel strongly. But I like AI art and I don't feel that there's any reason for me not to reblog it.

[annoying--moth]

No matter how many times it is explained to me or I talk about it with someone, I can't fully grasp what exactly is going on with art in the arc of a scythe universe. Because like,

It's stated multiple times that post-mortal art is "bland" and "uninspired" and "redone to death," and while I can certainly understand SOME art being like that, surely not all art is like that?? And I understand this in the sense that like, everyone's constantly remaking/repainting/making their own versions of famous paintings and such, but also there still has to be people who don't do that, right??? Like maybe I just have zero reading comprehension and somehow missed the bigger picture, but I feel like all this talk about art being redone to death implies that no one is making original art anymore? Which just. doesn't seem feasible to me?? Because as an artist myself, I can't see immortality taking away my ability to draw or come up with cool ideas. I don't draw because I'm going to die one day, I draw because I like it, and it's a form of creative expression. You can always come up with something new to draw- whether it's a cool oc, or someone you know, or just something random and abstract. The possibilities never end!

Of course, I suppose there is the argument then that people just aren't creative anymore, but I also find that hard to believe. I couldn't imagine ever truly running out of ideas. Like I mentioned above, OCs people??? I highly doubt there's no one in the post-mortal era still making weird, whacky, badass, or just cute OCs. Heck, I'd expect scythe ocs to be really popular! I wonder if it's like a thing for every kid to have a scythe oc phase..? Or at least kids in certain communities/fandoms (like scythe card trading- maybe they make their own cards for their scythe ocs!)

And also, it's confirmed that fiction is still very much a thing in the post-mortal era (I know zombies are referenced in one Gleanings story) so it's not like people can only connect to non-fiction. That's another thing that's discussed more in terms of theatre and writing- people not being able to connect to the themes because they're so far removed from it in reality. But my thing is, I've never experienced war or death (until very recently at least) and I still don't find myself unable to sympathize with people losing their loved ones to death or war or disease, although I suppose this could also have to do with the nanites. Plus the fact that death and war still exist in society as an actual thing that happens, but idk.

Also by the way- I feel like that one Gleanings story The Mortal Canvas has a subtle diss on digital art? And I have nothing against traditional art- heck I probably draw traditionally more often since I'm always doodling/sketching, but I feel like just because art is digital doesn't mean it's "uninspired" or whatever people were saying in the books. In fact, I've found myself moved emotionally by more digital pieces than traditional ones (although I don't see a lot of traditional paintings compared to digital ones tbf)

Also also I want to say- I don't exactly know how well this relates to my point but that one dude in The Mortal Canvas who made the others' artstyles into filters was a huge douchebag. AI art type shit, I was ready to strangle him reading that.

I remember the bit in The Toll about Ezra the artist, and how he said he was just "decent" or "moderately good" or something along those lines when we first met him, and I was going to make an argument about that part too but to be honest it's been a little while since I've read The Toll so I'll have to come back to that one once I reread it. But I think it also had to do with the emotional/creative aspect of art, which again, I refuse to believe immortality has such an influence on creativity that no art is original or interesting anymore. Sure it might make certain things harder, or make motivation worse, but I feel like if someone is truly creative it doesn't matter? Though then again, I'm not immortal so what do I know.

I briefly mentioned nanites earlier, and that is one thing that I do think probably has an impact, and I specifically mean emo-nanites. Since post-mortals can't feel as strong emotions as us mortal humans, perhaps that's also why their art seems more uninspired or whatever, because they can't put as much emotion into it. However, an excess amount of emotion isn't exactly needed to make art either. Like as I was writing this I was looking through my own art and realised that for some pieces I wasn't putting any emotional thought whatsoever into the pieces, yet there's still a clear emotion there when you look at them. Joy, wonder, whatever.

Anyway in conclusion, I think that it's unrealistic to say that all post-mortal art would be dull, uninspired, and meaningless, because I believe there will always be creative people who will make art not because they're gonna die one day, but because they want to and enjoy it, simple as that. Thanks to whoever stuck around long enough to read this far, I really hope it made sense. It's kinda late while I'm writing this and tbh I'm half-expecting there to be some huge detail/plot point that I missed that makes my whole argument totally invalid, whether that's me misinterpreting all the bits about post-mortal art or just being a complete dumbass with zero media literacy. Either way hope this was a fun read, I don't write long-form posts like these super often (note the lack of confidence in my media literacy skills) and if I made a really bad argument/missed something huge please be nice in the notes, I have a fragile ego :(

Uh yeah anyway I think I got everything as usual don't take my rambling *too* seriously, I just always found it confusing how post-mortal art is said to be so "uninspired" (I keep using that word cause I reread chapter 3 of Scythe today and Faraday uses it there) when I personally can't imagine not being able to be creative, though perhaps I'm just self-projecting. So uh, yeah.

[autumn-foxfire]

Wearing my Van Gogh sunflowers pajamas to watch movie 19: the hellfire sunflowers! What's not to love about this film, Art and KID.

Kaito spotted!

The amount of money the rich have disgusts me. I like Jirokichi but I know that this is really how the rich spend their money while the rest of the world suffers.

To be able to make Kamen Yaiba out of a watermelon is impressive.

Ai calling out Shinichi for his interest in art more than the professors invention (I don't blame him), I love thier friendship.

Sonoko has said she's not really interested in taking on the family name but she would be good at the job. It's no wonder that Jirokichi chose her to accompany him to make this announcement.

Shinichi is so close to the screen T-T The boys is obssessed. I don't blame him though.

Shinichi is so goddamn dramatic. "I only saw that for a moment but was that really my husband?" as the camera spins around him. If that was Kaito than DAAAMN. We don't appreciate his mad skills enough.

And he's slipped into his favourite disguise, his husband.

I love women looking out for other women. We vibe.

Ran's outfit is very cute for a change.

Kaito seeing Sonoko on the phone: Well, that's my cue to leave.

Shinichi you know your husband wouldn't put people in danger like that. Shame on you!

Kaito: The things I do for art (and my assistant).

The should be thanking Kaito, really, he just saved that piece of art.

SONOKO CALLING OUT TO RAN T-T SHE LOVES HER SO MUCH. She doesn't know if they'll survive and her last thoughts are for her closest friend. Fuck I adore that.

Shinichi after avoiding being hit by an airplane: I think my life just flashed before my eyes.

I love how the Shinichi's priorities are KID while Ran's are her friends.

Ran really thought you just fucking DIED Shinichi. And Shinichi is too busy with Kaito T-T I hurt for her but also I just want to scream about how when Kaito is in the picture, he has Shinichi's complete attention like a man possessed.

Round two with the Iron Tanuki.

The one thing the movies do that is close to canon is having Shinichi show so little care for Ran's feelings and I wish they wouldn't. Can he not be such an awful friend to her.

Sonoko and Kaito need to be come friends. Kaito deserves a friend like her who will defend him to the death.

Shinichi is also aware there is something off about what's happening with KID and wants to discover the mystery his husband is leaving for him.

Come on kids T-T Look at the other pieces of art! It's not often you get to see such amazing pieces.

I know this old women is important to the plot but can we not imply romance just from two people who trust one another greatly. I adore Shinichi and Ai's relationship because they're partners in crime and have promised to watch each other's backs.

Be careful of this transport service, the last one borrowed Scream for a picture in his house.

Kogoro: Stop making noise!

Shinichi: I'm literally fucking helping you useless drunk.

Shinichi is so confused about what's going on T-T Poor guy's like "this isn't like my husband..."

Of course the American is like "I need a gun".

Well, at least Charlie is acknowledging that Shinichi is useful and is helping him look at the screens.

And he was right because only Shinichi would notice something so small.

Kaito is like: I'm going to redistribute all this wealth!

Well done king. I hope people managed to grab a few of the bills.

I don't think this is how Jirokichi wants to be remembered XD

When you can't extort a ticket from Agasa, go to the ones running the competition XD

The children should be grateful Shinichi is so obsessed with Kaito as they only got the tickets because he's useful to Jirokichi.

Shinichi: Kill my husband and I will make you regret it

Ah, that's Jii.

At least Kaito is playing the role of Shinichi very well, avoiding his love interest to the best of his ability.

Thank you Ai for being a responsible guardian for the children. I don't know why you were the only one made to do so. I know why Ran has gone with Shinichi and Sonoko, but she should have stayed behind to look after them to ensure their safety.

Shinichi has finally figured out why his husband is being weird. It took him the whole movie

I was going to say this movie lacked murder. Nevermind, though it's never shown on screen. Well, it's not much of a murder but more self-defence even if the brother never meant to kill him, he was still using a gun.

KAITO MY BABY T-T

Kaito: SHINICHI TELL ME YOU'RE NOT!

Shinichi: I am! (Kicks debris at the painting)

And they have Ran's incredibly strength to free it.

He's jealous that he's not the one hugging Kaito :p

Awww, Kaito really was relying on Shinichi to figure it out. It's no wonder the next movie has them properly team up.

Stop flirting with one another! Your lives are in danger!

Shinichi stop taking credit for Kaito's work. He saved the sunflowers. Well he and Ran.

Shinichi is just calling out this woman's bullshit. This is what happens when people believe they're better than mutlple experts (cough what happened with Covid).

Kaito: GODDAMNIT IT SHINICHI!

And there's the necessary forced Ran and Shinichi romance. At least it happened between her and KID so it was more like filling the quota.

Kaito: Please say you made it out, Shinichi.

KAITO ABOUT TO REVEAL HIMSELF DESPITE THE DANGER HE'S IN HIMSELF BECAUSE HE'S CONCERNED FOR SHINICHI T-T

What would have made this movie better if Kaito did just rush out of the trees and into the water to save Shinichi. He's done it before.

Movie Kogoro is being a decent and caring guardian. You only see it rarely.

I just want to appreciate how good he looks.

LMAO KAITO STOLE AGASA'S TICKET. I THOUGHT HE JUST TOOK THE ONE SONOKO GOT FOR SHINICHI.